Repair question...

[Chibininja]

I just took my Explorer in for an alignment and was told that the left front stabilizer bracket and bushing and the l/s radius control arm bushing need to be replaced. The place quoted me 40 bucks for the lf bushing and bracket and a couple hundred for labor. I wasn't given a price quote for the radius control arm bushing...

I called around and found that the parts themselves, if I were to get them from a regular parts place (nonFord) would run me about 22 bucks total.

So, my question is, would you consider 200 bucks reasonable for labor for this? Its already obvious that they were a bit greedy with the part they DID price...

Thanks!

Chibininja

 

[JDraper]

Welcome to the board!!!


If the radius arm bushings have never been replaced before, it's probably not a bad quote. You either have to disassemble a big chunk of the front end, or grind off rivets to do the replacement. Take a look at where your radius arms attach to the frame. If they have bolts in there, it's an easy job you can do in the driveway, and the quote is too much. If they are rivets, it's a much harder job. You can still do it yourself if you own an angle grinder. Do a search on "radius" here and you'll find all sorts of info on how to do it.

 

[Chibininja]

Ended up buying the parts for less than $22 and then took them to a local mechanic to who put them in for $150. The Radius Control Arm Bushing needed to have rivets removed, but everything else already consisted of nuts and bolts...

The mechanic had to reshape the bracket for the stabilizer bushing (heavy tools were involved) because apparently the thing had been driven for quite a while with basically no stabilizer bushing in place...it was seriously tweaked...how could anyone drive something for that long without trying to locate and fix that rather nasty tendency to swerve? As some of my favorite anime characters would say..."Baka!!"

But now The Beast is back on the road, bushings installed and awaiting an alignment Monday...weeeee!!

 

[Chibininja]

Heh...I think I found out what happened to the previous bushing...

The left front one is missing again...it appears to have been melted by tranny fluid coming from my power steering pump (which I had replaced in September 2004, btw, at the same time I had that bushing replaced)

Time to replace it AGAIN...FEH! Only seven months later...

Chib